I’m not wearing rose-colored glasses, but these days, I seem to see pink everywhere. Not always the color itself, but stark reminders of the meaning behind the pink.
In conversations and observations, in bookstores and pharmacies, the pink inevitably seeps through. A bright and cheerful color that has, for now, been tainted by shades of crimson and grey.
Previously unfamiliar terms are clouding my brain, the building blocks of a foreign language I’d been perfectly content not to learn. But suddenly, the choice is no longer mine. Now I feel obligated to read and read – and then read some more. Now terms like micro-calcifications, stereotactic biopsies, sentinel lymph nodes and BRCA, previously unpronounceable, roll off my tongue with ease, planting their flag in my expanding pink-tionary.
Yesterday, badly in need of some blue, I headed over to the pool. But even there, amidst the red and white walls and ropes of my aqua-sanctuary of healing, I could not fully elude the pink: A middle-aged woman laid her fluffy PINK towel and bright PINK bag on a chair and proceeded to don a VERY FLASHY PINK bathing cap. It may have been a coincidence, but something about her getup announced: survivor.
The degrees of separation are much less than six, and some days the anxiety level is much more. It may still be a shaky road ahead, but with careful observation, a few more procedures and prayer, I do believe that this pink too shall pass.
Healing Pilgrim 